


Precipitation and a Wasted Cigarette

by bbcsherlockian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post Reichenbach, pre-reuinion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:06:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcsherlockian/pseuds/bbcsherlockian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock Holmes muses the infinity that stretches between himself and home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precipitation and a Wasted Cigarette

It’s been two and a half years.

The rain beats on the pain of glass relentlessly and Sherlock cannot see the stars tonight.

He reaches across the latch and drags the small skylight open, breathing the air and the damp deep into his lungs as if it will cleanse him of all his sins, as if each breath brings him closer to home.

It does not.

The roof is wet where his hands touch it and he imagines this is necessary to everything.

He slips slightly as his feet scrabble on the oily tiles, futile against the force of gravity that he almost defied, once. 

It’s cold and soon his clothes are sticking to his skin where the water hits him; each point of contact stings like tiny, tiny needles burrowing under his bones and as he tilts his face to the skies he smiles.

Perhaps the same rain is falling on John, somewhere.

“Infinities are illogical in their ceaselessness and everything will surely end and decay into atoms that will one day become us again.” He says to the water cascading over his shoulders, forcing his hair into uncomfortable tendrils resting on his face. “They are impossible and ridiculous, romanticised notions but I want an infinity for me and him, nevertheless.”

His shaking hand pulls a damp cigarette out of his pocket and he makes a noise that a stranger to him might have considered to be a laugh as the water drowns the light and he tosses the futile thing to the pavement, simply eons below him.

“He will be changed, and I will see this difference before he knows I still think of him. But nothing will have changed about him at all and I will be the ship waiting at the dock for the tide to take me out to him, he who is already engulfed in the seas infinities away from me.” The water does not respond and Sherlock watches as it builds itself lakes in the folds of his coat. “I fancy that I would quite like to drown in those waters.”

The tiles are growing more hostile and unforgiving against his strewn limbs and with every movement his joints groan with the force of separation and damp.

He gathers his knees up to his chest and looks at the fabric clinging so valiantly to him when everything else refuses to.

“I think I,” His breath catches in his throat as if his body knows of the treachery to himself he is about to let free.

The water pooling in his sleeve overflows and trickles down the length of his arm.

“I think I would like to return soon.” He closes his eyes against the onslaught. “I know of his wife’s condition and I know it would not be fair but.”

A lone burst of wind takes his hair from his forehead and whips it across his skin.

It stings with inevitability and frozen burning.

“Perhaps. After the funeral.” The sky steals the air from his lungs and throws it carelessly about his head before forcing it between his lips once more. “I shall not attend it for her; I hate what she has done to him. It is my right to loathe her. But to be there for him, as a last act before our false infinities force us apart and a sense of misguided duty draws him from me-- I feel I should like that. It’s best.”

The rain taunts him with whispers of currents over his palm and gentle kisses to his eyelids.

It had always known what he had not.

“Oh,” It felt like a punch, a collision, an unwanted release. “It will not be he who has changed. He is… immovable. I am not the same man and he will detest that. Perhaps I should simply.”

He gestures with a cramped hand to the air around him and the reassuringly predictable beat across his skin allowed him to breathe.

“Fade.”

The rain continued to mock him and the skylight remained open while all of those uncharted waters poured in.

“Yes. That would be best.”


End file.
